How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

Ideally, how long should a blog post be? This is a question that many content creators struggle with. Truth be told, the answer to this question depends on the content of what’s being written and for whom it’s being written.

Is the post being written in order to drive social media engagement? Is it for SEO purposes? Is it to increase sales or gather backlinks? Whatever the purpose, it’s important to ensure that what you’ve written is within the scope provided by the editor at a social web factory, for example.

If it isn’t, then it’ll probably end up getting overly edited and worlds apart from what you originally submitted. The important thing to remember is that each publication has a regular word count for its content, and the same goes even for your own website.

By maintaining the same article length, you establish yourself as a consistent content provider and your readers will know what to expect every time they visit your website as a social web factory.

The Logical Approach

With all that said, you’ll find that different website owners and web masters have vastly different opinions on what the optimal length is for ideal content, and it could be anything from 300 words to 2,000.

However, if your goal is to churn out really good content for SEO purposes, then articles of 1,500 words or so should be enough. That’s because they will require the same reading time from the viewer, which research shows is around 7 minutes, just enough time for someone to spare in-between activities.

It also helps incorporate graphics and images to break up the text and format the content properly so that it’s spaced well. Plus, you can cram a lot of information into a 1,500 word article without sacrificing any of that lucrative research information that you spent hours putting together.

Not only will your reader appreciate the reasonable length, but they’ll also appreciate your ability to condense it into a length that’s easy and quick to digest.

The Tried and Tested Approach

If your goal is to put out a well-written opinion piece, then a standard magazine column length of about 600 to 1,000 words should be fine. It’s enough for your readers to handle in-between meetings or while waiting for their lunch at the corner coffee shop.

To make sure that you get your reader’s attention without sacrificing on the SEO benefits, you can break your post into two parts of 600 to 1,000 words each, as a standard social web factory would do.

The Epic Posts

Long posts of 1,600 words or more are a great way to improve your Google search engine rankings because they’re more likely to provide better value for the reader and are thus preferred over shorter posts in most cases.

These usually come in the form of “how-to” tutorials and other educational formats that will direct visitors to your site for many years to come.

The great thing about long-form content is that it’s easier for you to incorporate your keywords as many times as you like without looking spammy.